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TD Ameritrade (www.tdameritrade.com) has just added a feature called Snapstock to its mobile application, intended to give you financial information about items you see when you're at the grocery store or the mall. Snapstock lets you use your iPhone or Android phone's camera to scan a barcode off a retail product, and then get a quote on the producing company's stock, if it's publicly traded. You'll find the Snapstock function in the quotes section of the mobile app; click on the camera icon and point it at a barcode.

Nicole Sherrod, managing director of TD Ameritrade's trader group, notes, "Investors tend to use our mobile-trading platforms more for opening transactions than for closing ones. Because of this fact, we sought to integrate innovative new features while helping support our investors' desire to always be on the lookout for opportunities no matter where they are -- the drugstore, the mall, or the market."

We've seen mobile apps use the built-in smartphone camera for depositing checks; now the camera can also be used to help generate trading ideas. The quote detail generated by Snapstock contains links that allow you to put the stock on a watch list, or place a trade. You can also check out recent news, examine a chart, or delve into options chains.

This feature lets you think about trading while you're shopping for items for dinner, a cold remedy, or a new pair of shoes. It could make that next trip to the mall much more interesting.

There's a newcomer to the list of online brokers: Kapitall Generation (www.kapitall.com) opened its virtual doors to the public in late January, bringing a unique look and feel to investing. The site offers a game-like view of investing, with all activity taking place on what the founders call "the playground." CEO Gaspard de Dreuzy is a veteran of game production and development while creative director Cordell Ratzlaff spent time at Apple leading its Human Interface Group. So their front end looks very little like other online brokerage sites and services we've been reviewing for the past two decades.

De Dreuzy says, "We believe that all existing online brokers are very focused on the more sophisticated and mature online traders, but the rest of us need a brokerage platform like Kapitall that delivers a superior user experience." He likens the Kapitall platform to the Sony Wii, which was a less powerful gaming system than others but transformed the industry due to its ease of use. "We are trying to be the Wii and iPhone of investing," de Dreuzy notes.

We must, however, admit to a negative reaction to the name of the newly-launched online broker. Ratzlaff says that the name was a place-holder during the site's build-out phase, but it seems to have stuck. We're not sure what something that conjures Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" has to do with capitalistic investing and trading. But we digress.

The site was launched as a Web application to help investors explore their ideas, but recently became a broker/dealer and attached a trade execution engine to its front-end. Currently you can only buy and sell stocks in a cash account at Kapitall, but there are plans to add trading on margin and options transactions later in the year. There are also plans to roll out an iPad app by summer. It's now in beta test.

When you first log in, you go through a quick questionnaire intended to customize the experience based on your interests and amount of investing experience. The Playground is then displayed, which includes a practice portfolio with $5,000 in virtual money. Rather than seeing menu items and a lot of data, you see a collection of icons that represent your practice portfolio and stocks that might interest you. You organize your experience by dragging and dropping the icons, which could represent individual stocks, groups of stocks, or a portfolio.

These tile-like icons are color-coded based on the industry (blue for high tech, for instance) and are festooned with the corporate logo. On the left side is a palette that can be opened with tools that help you study the stocks on your Playground. The Compar-o-Matic lets you look at fundamental data in visually-arresting way, showing changes in value with an animated graph.

Another tool is the Number Cruncher, which lets you dig into fundamental financial data and SEC filings while it explains underlying concepts in English. As you use the various tools on the site, you generate points, and you "level up" just like in a video game. As you level up, you get access to more tools and additional virtual cash for your practice portfolio.

We can see this broker appealing to younger investors who are familiar with the video-game paradigm, yet uncomfortable with the traditional number-heavy online brokers. Kapitall is also plugged into Twitter, with a stream of tweets scrolling on the bottom of the screen that pertain to the stocks you've got on your Playground. The Mini-Map that pops out on the right side of the screen shows you where all your icons are scattered around the Playground; you can use that to scroll from screen to screen.

You can join the site for free and use the tools and a practice portfolio without opening an account, and it would be worth it just to play with the interface. You get real-time quotes, supplied by BATS; if you do sign up for and fund an account by the end of March, you'll pay $5 per stock transaction for the life of the account. Commissions are $9.95 per trade otherwise. Karl would be intrigued.